Various methods are known for transmitting data-compressed bit streams. Such a method for the transmission of MPEG2 data has been specified in the specification MPEG2 Part 1: Systems (ISO/IEC DIS 13818-1). In this case, the coded data are not transmitted as a continuous stream but rather are subdivided into smaller information units, so-called packets. This formation of packets enables, on the one hand, the synchronization of data streams and, on the other hand, the joining together of a plurality of data streams to form a new data stream. Depending on the type of transmission and/or the application, the data are transmitted either in the program stream or in the transport stream. For radio-broadcasting transmission via cable, satellite or terrestrially, the transport stream is used since it has a particularly robust structure in the form of short packets. In this case, a transport packet is divided into a header comprising four bytes, optionally into an adaptation field, and furthermore into the area of the useful information. Thirteen bits of the header are used for the so-called packet identification. The packet identification (PID) in this case serves for assigning the packets to the different elementary streams, packets which belong to one and the same elementary stream having identical PIDs. The PIDs under which a corresponding decoder can find the individual packets within the transport stream are transmitted as part of the useful data in the form of tables. In this case, the Program Association Table specifies the number of programs contained in a transport stream and defines the assignment of the PID to the Program Map Table for each of the programs. The Program Map Table in turn contains a list of all PIDs for the elementary streams which are associated with the program assigned to the table.
For reproduction of the elementary streams, for instance by a set-top box with outputting via the screen of a television set, the packets of the desired program have to be selected from the transport stream by means of the PIDs using the demultiplexer. This requires in each case the evaluation of the Program Association Table and Program Map Table, and also that the PIDs of the elementary streams to be reproduced be known to the demultiplexer in the set-top box. If the set-top box has a digital interface via which parts of the transport data stream can be stored and reproduced later or via which an arbitrary transport data stream can be fed to the set-top box, the demultiplexer must firstly be reprogrammed with the respective PIDs after evaluation of the Program Association Table and Program Map Table. Reproduction simply by the pressing of a reproduction (play) button is thus not possible.